M ampersand D Duck Read

Sun Jan 4 14:12:02 CST 2015

This is news to me. Have always regarded him as a Durham County lad through
and through.

On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 9:40 PM, M Thomas Stevenson <
m.thomas.stevenson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes! All of that, very well put Elizabeth. One slight ellision: you would
> be forgiven for thinking Dixon is Northern but it's even more of a divider
> than that: he's Scottish! All those Yese and thahs are classic. Being a
> Northern-Englander, though, TRP's ear is impeccable.
>
> On 4 January 2015, at 19:33, Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com> wrote:
>
> Like you said Thomas, much is made of their differences! Like them being
> Northern and Southern (English). Very different cultures, and knowingly so.
> Jokingly so. Caricaturish? London like a country to itself (which The City
> of London actually is), and The North: mores and dales, fairs and faries,
> old magic…! Only because I once lived in North Yorkshire near Scarborough
> (where Dixon is from?), was I able to grasp Dixons Northern accent and
> character when I read the book in 99(?) So, because being Norwegian (my
> English sadly deteriorating), I always wondered: TP must have stayed in
> England over a longer period of time doing research to have got under the
> skin/language/culture/dress/history whatever, but most importantly the
> sense of humor a language or an accent contains? …of the two very different
> cultures the two characters embodies?
> Uhm, …like Yin&Yang?
> I’d like to add that to me M&D is not only an "American novel" but also an
> «English» one, which in some way or another the cover coveys, but this is a
> personal association of course.
>
> Also my first association to the name of this thread was 'Anders And'
> (Donald Duck in Danish). ‘And' meaning 'duck' in Scandinavian languages.
> Then I thought it said ampersand, as in an amper (mad) duck. All this was
> very fitting I thought, very clever, and way over my head of course, but
> then I realised what you were Actually discussing...
>
> A bit of a ramble, quite embarrassing, but I might as well get stuck in,
> or else I get too worried about saying something good to the point where I
> don't say anything.
>
> Cheers for all your input so far, and we haven’t even started yet!
> Brilliant!
> Elisabeth
>
>
>
> > 4. jan. 2015 kl. 19.35 skrev Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
> >
> > yeah, their own Almost-Trinity (to blaspheme from TRP's growing-up
> > religion). They are One,
> > in very important American ways, yes?
> >
> > A--and, to save another posting, the book is also a buddy book, a
> > buddy 'movie', too, right?
> > From Don Quixote thru Kerouac (and beyond), we got books full of duos.
> > Having meaningful
> > adventures.
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 1:06 PM, M Thomas Stevenson
> > <m.thomas.stevenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> A-and the way I read it though was how the ampersand originated
> formerly from "and per se and", when & was tagged-on at the end of the
> alphabet, becoming a blurred andperseand, anpersand, etc., so: borders of
> words becoming blurred, Mason & Dixon no longer singular entities with
> individuated selves, but like "Smith's & Sons", a body, a corpus. Much is
> made of their differences so far, as I've seen.
> >>
> >> On 4 January 2015, at 16:15, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Here's something to think on (maybe): the Ampersand symbol has been
> largely lost
> >> to history as the future has unfolded from 1789,  in title use, book
> >> cataloguing, title copyrighting, etc.
> >>
> >> Gone. Not yet but soon a Dodo?
> >>
> >> A small but meaningful loss in History? Another one?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 11:03 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> Mike wrote:
> >>>> For me, aesthetics. Pure and simple. Sometimes an ampersand is just an
> >>>> ampersand. Unsatisfying to you close readers, but there you have it.
> >>>
> >>> The symbol is pretty. And it suggests a story set long ago if not so
> >>> very far away.
> >>> So a good argument for the aesthetic use of the symbol.
> >>>
> >>> With the handheld communication device, now a tool in the hands of our
> >>> young as they learn to write, the symbol is in common use when
> >>> texting. Symbols, letters of alphabets and so forth do not correspond
> >>> with sounds. Nor would we want this to be the case. They approximate
> >>> the mental lexicon of phonemes and with other stuff, call this other
> >>> stuff " rules", to avoid linguistic jargon, and given a particular
> >>> context, the writer provides a symbolic framework upon with the reader
> >>> builds meaning. So, what you made up here (below) is wrong.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Here, I will make something up.
> >>>> When reading there is a certain tendency to translate the text into
> >>>> language. In a way,  our brains hear the words that we are reading.
> You see
> >>>> 'and' and hear 'and'. Which might indicate a definite distinction
> between
> >>>> the linked terms. But with a symbol, you first have to translate the
> symbol
> >>>> into a word, then hear it. I would suggest that the ampersand is
> heard more
> >>>> of an 'n' than a 'and'. This elision blurs the distinction between
> the two
> >>>> terms. Mark hinted at that by suggesting that Melanie and Jackson are
> two
> >>>> separate entities. The 'and' in the dedication. If, as I suggest, the
> >>>> ampersand is heard as 'n', it connects the terms in a more intimate
> way, not
> >>>> so distinct.
> >>>> To summarize, Mason and Dixon are two distinct individuals, while
> Mason &
> >>>> Dixon are much closer and linked in more permanent way. There is not
> one
> >>>> without the other.
> >>>> Hey, there is a graduate thesis here. "The Ampersand and the
> Dissolution of
> >>>> Interpersonal Boundaries in the Writings of TRP". Or not.
> >>>>
> >>>> Regards,
> >>>>
> >>>> Mike
> >>>>
> >>>> On 1/4/2015 6:30 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Mike, any notions re 'What gives?'
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 6:00 AM, Mike <beider19 at comcast.net> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Also it is not "For Melanie & For Jackson".
> >>>> What gives?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On 1/4/2015 4:44 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> What meaningful differences exist if not "Mason and Dixon"?
> >>>>
> >>>> Dedication: " For Melanie and for Jackson" ...not " for Melanie and
> >>>> Jackson".....Pynchon's precision singles each out, the separate
> individuals
> >>>> that they are.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> *********************************
> >>>>           Just for fun
> >>>> http://beider19.home.comcast.net
> >>>> *********************************
> >>> -
> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listÒnchon-l
>
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